Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), chairwoman of the committee, has asked the board to submit all records relating to the two contracts awarded for the system. She has also asked for documents from the lawsuit filed by the board after it fired its original contractor, American Management Systems Inc. of Fairfax, Va.

'It is outrageous that a federal agency spent tens of millions of dollars in retirement savings on a system that it couldn't even use,' Collins said.

Before it hired a second contractor'Matcom International Inc. of Alexandria, Va.'the board had already paid AMS $36 million. Matcom launched the TSP system in June, six years after work began and two years after Matcom took over from AMS.